Stone of Tears

It was Kahlan’s turn to blush. “What kind of question is that to ask someone!”

“Answer the question, Mother Confessor,” Shota hissed, “or I will skin you right now and use your hide to make myself something pretty. I am of a mind to do it anyway. You had better not even think of lying to me.”

“I… We… No! And what business is it of yours anyway!”

Shota stepped closer. Her eyes sent a silent shriek through Kahlan. “Maybe you’d better think twice before you do, Mother Confessor.”

“What do you mean?” she breathed, wide-eyed.

Shota folded her arms across her breasts. Her voice became more menacing. “Confessors are not supposed to love their mates, because if they bear a male child, she has to ask the husband to kill the baby. The husband is supposed to have been taken by the Confessor’s power, so that he will do whatever she asks. Without question.”

“But…”

Shota stepped even closer, her eyes filled with fury. “If you love him, how could you ask that of him! How could you ask Richard to kill his son? Do you think he would? Would you? Would you kill the son of the man you love? Would you, Mother Confessor?”

Shota’s words knifed into Kahlan’s heart and soul, leaving her barely able to whisper the answer. “No.”

She felt her hopes and happiness collapsing. In the joy of finding she could be with Richard, she hadn’t given any thought to the future. To the consequences. To children. She had thought only of Richard and her being together.

Shota was screaming at her. “And then what, Mother Confessor! You will raise him? And you will visit upon the world a male Confessor? A male Confessor!” She unfolded her arms, her white-knuckled fists dropping to her sides. “You will bring the world to the dark times again! The dark times! Because of you! Because you love this man! Did you ever think of that, you ignorant child?”

The lump in Kahlan’s throat threatened to choke her. She wanted to run from Shota, but she couldn’t move. “Not all male Confessors are that way.”

“Almost every one is! Almost every one!” She pointed a single finger at Richard without looking at him. “Are you going to risk the world, because you love this man? Risk sending everyone into the terror of the dark times, just because you would selfishly want the son of this man to live?”

“Shota,” Richard’s voice was surprisingly calm. “Most Confessors bear girls. You are worrying about something that probably won’t even happen. We may not even have children. Not all couples conceive. You are extending your worries along a lot of forks in the road.”

Richard suddenly slid down the wall, landing with a grunt. In a rage, Shota grabbed his shirt in her fists and lifted him, slamming him against the wall, knocking the wind from his lungs. “do you think I am as stupid as you? I know the flow of time! I am a witch woman! I told you before, I know how certain events flow and unfold! If you lie with this woman, she will have a male child! She is a Confessor! Every Confessor bears a Confessor! Always! If you give her a child, it will be a boy!”

She slammed him against the wall again. Kahlan winced at the sound of his head hitting the wall. Shota’s behavior was frightening, and seemed out of character. She had impressed Kahlan before as menacing in the extreme, but she also seemed intelligent and reasonable. At least to an extent. She seemed different now, unstable.

Richard didn’t try to remove her hands, but Kahlan could see he was getting angry. “Shota—”

She slammed him up against the wall again. “Keep your tongue still or I will cut it out!”

Richard’s rage looked to match Shota’s. “You were wrong before, Shota! Wrong! There are many ways for events to flow forward in time. Had I listened to you the last time, and killed Kahlan when you wanted me to, Darken Rahl would rule us all now! And it would have been because I followed your stupid advice! It was through her that I defeated Darken Rahl! If I had done as you wished, we would have lost!”

His chest heaved as he glared at her. “If you have come all this way to threaten us about some perceived threat, you have wasted your time. I didn’t do it your way the last time, and I will not do it your way now! I will not kill her nor will I give her up on your word! On anyone’s!”

Shota stared at him a moment and then removed her hands from his shirt. “I did not come here about some “perceived” threat to the future,” she whispered. “I did not come here to argue with you about making babies with Confessors, Richard Rahl.”

Richard jerked back in shock. “I’m not…”

“I came here, because I may want to kill you for what you have done, Richard Rahl. That you two ignorant children want to go make babies is a flea on the back of the true monster you have already created.”

“Why are you calling me that?” Richard whispered.

Shota studied his pale face. “Because that is who you are.”

“I am Richard Cypher. George Cypher was my father.”

“You were raised by a man named Cypher. You were sired by one named Darken Rahl. He raped your mother.”